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→2020 U.S. Presidential election interference
"Trump has been saying that Biden’s son has some sort of global foundation. Have you noticed that? Who helped [Hunter] build the foundations? Got it? There are a lot of deals inside all these."<ref>https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/12/08/top_chinese_intellectual_boasts_about_old_friends_who_are_at_the_top_of_americas_core_inner_circle_of_power_and_influence.html#!</ref><ref>https://youtu.be/lyQUtPEBBSA</ref><ref>https://thepostmillennial.com/watch-tucker-carlson-exposes-how-media-democrats-have-been-working-on-behalf-of-china/</ref>}}
"Trump has been saying that Biden’s son has some sort of global foundation. Have you noticed that? Who helped [Hunter] build the foundations? Got it? There are a lot of deals inside all these."<ref>https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/12/08/top_chinese_intellectual_boasts_about_old_friends_who_are_at_the_top_of_americas_core_inner_circle_of_power_and_influence.html#!</ref><ref>https://youtu.be/lyQUtPEBBSA</ref><ref>https://thepostmillennial.com/watch-tucker-carlson-exposes-how-media-democrats-have-been-working-on-behalf-of-china/</ref>}}
==Economic history==
China's economy, based on rice and wheat farming, was generally prosperous until the 18th century. Population pressures and failure to adopt new technology led to an impoverished nation by 1900.
After Mao's death, the policy of modernization along Western lines has led to a remarkable rate of economic growth in the industrial cities, which have pulled in millions of peasants from the still poor rural areas. Slack environmental standards have led to serious pollution problems.
The modern Chinese economy has benefited from investments from Taiwan and Hong Kong. They jumped far ahead of China by 1970 in terms of technology, and in recent years have invested in mainland industries.
These two factors have changed the Chinese economy, from a command economy to a more socialist state, with the Chinese economy increasingly in the hands of privately owned businesses, not state- or military-run enterprises. However, after several years the trend reversed, as it is in the start that those who are related to the political power are treated differently than the rest of the enterprises.
Since 1980 China has enjoyed the highest economic growth rates in the world. Suddenly in mid-2008, the growth rate slowed sharply from 11% a year to only 5.5%. Much of the economy was geared to exports and building factories for exports to the United States and Japan. When the [[Financial Crisis of 2008]] hit, exports fell off and prices for industrial products like steel fell in half. Many factories were shut down. The decline has especially hit steel, cement, and the construction industry. The government in November 2008 announced a $586 billion stimulus program to build roads, dams, electric grids, and other infrastructure projects that are designed to supplement the international market.<ref>David Barboza, "Great Engine of China Slows ," [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/business/worldbusiness/26chinasteel.html?_r=1 ''New York Times'' Nov. 25, 2008]</ref>
Since 1979, China has largely rejected socialism and embraced capitalism, while maintaining Communist party rule. Private ownership of the means of production has dramatically reduced poverty and increased wealth, especially in the cities but also in rural areas. Nationally the GDP (in 2007 prices) has exploded from 2 trillion yuan in 1980 to 25 trillion in 2007.
As late as 1980 60% of the people in rural China lives in poverty; by 2007 fewer than 5% did. Grain production has grown 300 to 500 tons per person, and rural income per person has soared from a few hundred yuan in 1980 to over 4000.<ref>See ''Economist'' Dec. 13, 2008</ref>
The reforms reformed and opened its economy. The Chinese leadership adopted a more pragmatic perspective on many political and socioeconomic problems. China's economic transformation had a profound impact not only on China but on the world. The market-oriented reforms China implemented since the 1980s unleashed individual initiative and entrepreneurship. The result was the largest reduction of poverty and one of the fastest increases in income levels ever seen. China today is the second-largest economy in the world. It sustained average economic growth of over 9.5% up to the [[Crash of 2008]]. In 2006 its $2.76 trillion economy was about one-fifth the size of the U.S. economy. By 2021 it's $15 trillion dollar economy was more than three-fourths.
In the 1980s, China tried to combine central planning with market-oriented reforms to increase productivity, living standards, and technological quality without exacerbating inflation, unemployment, and budget deficits. China pursued agricultural reforms, dismantling the commune system and introducing a household-based system that provided peasants greater decision-making in agricultural activities. The government also encouraged nonagricultural activities such as village enterprises in rural areas, and promoted more self-management for state-owned enterprises, increased competition in the marketplace, and facilitated direct contact between Chinese and foreign trading enterprises. China also relied more on foreign financing and imports.
During the 1980s, these reforms led to average annual rates of growth of 10% in agricultural and industrial output. Rural per capita real income doubled. China became self-sufficient in grain production; rural industries accounted for 23% of agricultural output, helping absorb surplus labor in the countryside. The variety of light industrial and consumer goods increased. Reforms began in the fiscal, financial, banking, price-setting, and labor systems.
By the late 1980s, however, the economy had become overheated with increasing rates of inflation. At the end of 1988, in reaction to a surge of inflation caused by accelerated price reforms, the leadership introduced an [[Ascesis|austerity]] program.
[[File:Shanghai China CIA.jpg|thumb|left|280px|The Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai overlooks the Huangpu River.]]
China's economy regained momentum in the early 1990s. During a visit to southern China in early 1992, China's paramount leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, made a series of political pronouncements designed to reinvigorate the process of economic reform. The 14th Party Congress later in the year backed Deng's renewed push for market reforms, stating that China's key task in the 1990s was to create a "socialist market economy." The 10-year development plan for the 1990s stressed continuity in the political system with bolder reform of the economic system.
China's economy grew at an average rate of 10% per year during the period 1990–2004, the highest growth rate in the world. China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 10.0% in 2003, and even faster, 10.1%, in 2004, and 9.9% in 2005 despite attempts by the government to cool the economy. China's total trade in 2006 surpassed $1.76 trillion, making China the world's third-largest trading nation after the U.S. and Germany. Such high growth is necessary if China is to generate the 15 million jobs needed annually—roughly the size of Ecuador or Cambodia—to employ new entrants into the job market.
Nevertheless, serious imbalances exist behind the spectacular trade performance, high investment flows, and high GDP growth. High numbers of non-performing loans weigh down the state-run banking system. Inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are still a drag on growth, despite announced efforts to sell, merge, or close the vast majority of SOEs.
Social and economic indicators have improved since reforms were launched, but rising inequality is evident between the more highly developed coastal provinces and the less developed, poorer inland regions. According to World Bank estimates, more than 152 million people in China in 2003—mostly in rural areas of the lagging inland provinces—still live in poverty, on consumption of less than U.S. $1 a day.
Following the Chinese Communist Party's Third Plenum, held in October 2003, Chinese legislators unveiled several proposed amendments to the state constitution. One of the most significant was a proposal to provide protection for private property rights. Legislators also indicated there would be a new emphasis on certain aspects of overall government economic policy, including efforts to reduce unemployment (now in the 8-10% range in urban areas), to rebalance income distribution between urban and rural regions, and to maintain economic growth while protecting the environment and improving social equity. The National People's Congress approved the amendments when it met in March 2004. The Fifth Plenum in October 2005 approved the 11th Five-Year Economic Program aimed at building a "harmonious society" through a more balanced wealth distribution and improved education, medical care, and social security.
==References==
==References==